Turn on

Turn on

25th TiDF: Greek Premiere

Turn on shows close-ups of the faces of unemployed Albanian men, who are regularly found on the steps of the city square of Shkodra, where the artist was born. One after another starts a noisy electrical generator to make a large light bulb glow. As the camera withdraws further and further, the entire staircase becomes visible with all the men hired for the project. What remains invisible is that some of the local residents thought the action was a political protest against the government and assembled, some of them waving flags. The electrical generators that are necessary for survival become a metaphor for the unstable infrastructure of the country since the end of communism, which Lenin had already symbolically equated with electricity.

Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.


Direction: Adrian Paci
Cinematography: Gentian Koçi
Editing: Klod Agostini
Production: Galerie Peter Kilchmann
Format: HD
Color: Color
Production Country: Albania
Production Year: 2004
Duration: 4'
Contact: Adrian Paci

Adrian Paci

Adrian Paci (b, 1969) in Shkoder, is an Albanian artist who currently lives and works in Milano. From 1987 to 1991 he attended the Akademia e Arteve in Tirana, Albania. He lectured in art history and aesthetics in Shkodër from 1995 until 1997, at which time he left his home country for Milan, escaping the violence of the armed uprising that roiled Albania that year. Paci’s position as an exile holds a central place in his oeuvre. His work frequently addresses themes of geographical separation, nostalgia, and memory, and conveys a keen sense of the mutability of life and art. Characterized by a fluid interplay between performance and body art, his videos frequently focus on quotidian existence and feature members of his own family. In 1999, Paci was among the first Albanian artists to represent their country at the Venice Biennale. His first major solo exhibition took place the following year at MoMA PS1 in New York. Since 2003 he has been a lecturer in visual arts at the Accademia Carrara di Belle Arti in Bergamo and the Università IUAV in Venice. He is the founder of ART HOUSE in Shkodra, Albania.

Filmography

1997 Albanian Stories (short)
2000 Believe me I am an artist (short)
2002 Piktori (short)
2002 Vajtojca (short)
2004 Turn on (short)
2006 Per Speculum (short)
2007 Centro di Permanenza temporanea (short)
2010 Electric Blue (short)
2011 The Encounter (short)
2013 The Column (short)
2015 The Guardians (short)
2015 Sue proprie mani (short)
2017 Rasha (short)
2017 Interregnum (short)
2017 Di queste luci si servirà la note (short)
2019 Broken Words (short)
2019 Prova (short)
2020 Vedo rosso (short)
2021 U’ncuontru (short)
2021 The Wanderers (short)